WaPo Mag Gives Reality "Geek" a Second Chance
The most consistently well-read portion of the Washington Post Magazine seems to be their weekly "Date Lab" column, a formally fraught reality-TV-show-on-paper in which two singles go on a blind date and tell a reporter all about it right afterwards. Previous headline teasers for Date Lab include:
- "Julie seemed perfect for Africa-loving PR guy Lawrence. But there was something she didn't share." (Feb. 25, 2007)
- "She wants a nice Jewish boy; he's sweet enough to make mom melt. But what about the spark?" (Jan. 28, 2007)
- "Will a love of meat products and the Steelers bring these two Pittsburgh natives together?" (Dec. 26, 2007)
- Despite the rudimentary conceit—Date Lab boils the reality show formula down to a hot, potent pebble—the column operates on a somewhat mind-bending premise, sort of like when NPR plays audio clips from movies. Today, in dramatic fashion, it double-backs on itself, and for a brief moment, the WaPo Magazine all but stops existing.
The girl is a dating coach named Amy, and the boy is Piao, a cast member from the dating-oriented reality show "Beauty and the Geek 3" in which he was billed as a loser who'd "only kissed one girl." It's a book based on a movie based on a book. Like You've Got Mail, by Tom Hanks, or Beloved: The Book, by Oprah (??).
How'd the date go? Not good, obviously! Or, well, about as well as you'd expect from an encounter so deeply infected with the radiation of our modern times.
Amy reports: "One [strange] thing was that I'd ask him trivial questions like, 'Have you seen the movie Meet Joe Black? and he'd say yes, and then he'd say, 'No, I didn't see it.' It happened several times." Piao explains: "I just lied to her, basically. I don't know why." —LEON
